Wow. This is an endorsement I’d been chasing.
The worst, most ineffective president in my memory, possibly in history, endorses Howard Dean.
The “one-world” types will applaud this, but they were already Dean supporters, anyway. Read my earlier post, “World Psychology” to see what I mean.
Sweden’s ambassador to Israel Robert Rydberg has responded, well, diplomatically: “I understand the action of Ambassador Mazel. The relations between Sweden and Israel are strong enough to get over this crisis.”
I’ve written before about diplomacy. This is simply another example. “Let’s talk nice, but you need to change your opinion. Then we can both get back to sipping champagne.”
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is a basic building block for any elementary study of psychology. Maslow identified five stages in the psychological growth of any human being, Physiological Needs, Safety Needs, Love Needs, Esteem Needs, and Self-Actualization, which represent the full range from essentials to indulgence. Each state melds with the one above and below it so that there are variations with elements of another within each state.
Change from one state to a higher one is considered to be “success.” Change in the downward direction is bad because it requires a re-focus on survival skills rather than indulgence. So, change is good, but change is bad.
Homeostasis is the nature of ecological, biological, and social systems to oppose change with every means at their disposal. According to the Principia Cybernetica Web:
Homeostasis is one of the most remarkable and most typical properties of highly complex open systems. A homeostatic system (an industrial firm, a large organization, a cell) is an open system that maintains its structure and functions by means of a multiplicity of dynamic equilibriums rigorously controlled by interdependent regulation mechanisms. Such a system reacts to every change in the environment, or to every random disturbance, through a series of modifications of equal size and opposite direction to those that created the disturbance. The goal of these modifications is to maintain the internal balances.
So, change is not good. Change is bad.
Maslow was interested in individuals, and his concepts are meant to apply to individuals. The concept of homeostasis developed by physiologist Walter Cannon was also intended, originally, to apply to individual organisms. Both do have value in looking at group activity on both the micro (individual) and macro (group) level.
According to Maslow, the base state is the need to satisfy physiological needs:food, air, water, sleep. These are all requirements for survival of the individual, and other needs will not even be a consideration unless these are met. In the US, these needs are met for all who want them. Nobody goes unfed or unsheltered unless they so choose. Children in this country are not hungry unless their parents decide they need to be. The safety net is in place and functional.
The second level in Maslow’s structure is safety. One cannot progress without a sense of security. In day-to-day living, the vast majority of Americans give no thought to this. Some in this country cannot progress beyond this state, in spite of having achieved some elements of the higher states.
The third level is love, or bonding, or belonging. It includes personal one-on-one relationships as well as group identity. This and the next level are where the majority of Americans stay, and want to be. It is the level socialism seeks for us all.
That next level is esteem. This includes self-esteem, which is where, we are told, society wants us all to be. It is the desire for adulation at one extreme, and the sense of being respected at another.
Finally, the highest state of being in Maslow’s world is self-actualization. At this level, all your baser needs are met, and you are free to indulge yourself. You can become everything you ever wanted to be. You can do anything you ever wanted to do. It is the essence of capitalism.
In the United States, we have collectively lived in the level 3 to level 4 range (let’s call it Level 3.5) for the last forty years. Individually, we would all like to achieve self-actualization. Yet we know that stage is nearly impossible to reach as a group because there are always those content to stay at the lower levels. So we content ourselves with being at the “belonging” stage culturally. It is comfortable. It is why we have interest groups, and the hated “special-interest groups.” The only difference being that any group we belong to isn’t one of those. Every disease or human failing has a support group we can join. We certainly desire adulation, and bestow it on some in substitution for respect. We certainly want respect ourselves. Culturally, though, adulation is more important.
These statics have become dynamics since September 11, 2001. As a nation, we fell from Level 3.5 to Level 2. Homeostasis was strong, and now we are trying to regain our balance.
There is a very angry group which wants a quick return to “belonging.” Getting to “esteem” isn’t even a consideration. They want to belong to the world, belong to the UN, belong to one another. They just want to belong, and don’t really care whom they belong with. This has driven the Dean campaign.
There are those who want to again reach the esteem level. They aren’t interested in adulation, but do want respect. The rest of the world had lost its respect for the US. They are now beginning to understand that is a bad thing.
Honoring someone with respect is not the same as demeaning oneself. Equals respect one another. But if you live in the world of “belonging,” respect is higher. From your perspective, you are ceding status. Those who live in the levels below this don’t want to offer respect because they view it as adulation.
This is the crux of the far left’s hatred of George Bush. They know what our country has accomplished in the last two years. They know we have once again climbed up from the security level. They know they would be happy reaching a state of belonging. But they know he wants us to go to the level of respect–respect from the outside, and self-respect. I believe some actually respect him, but can’t express it for fear of being accused by their group of adoring him.
This election will be one of the most important in years. The choice is one of adopting the world community’s socialistic culture completely, or insisting on achiving the higher state of respect and preventing another decline into the security level.
Personally, I’m shooting for the top. And so is Ed Koch:
“I am a lifelong Democrat. I was elected to New York’s City Council, Congress and three terms as mayor of New York City on the Democratic Party line. I believe in the values of the Democratic Party as articulated by Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson and by Senators Hubert Humphrey, Henry ‘Scoop’ Jackson and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Our philosophy is: ‘If you need a helping hand, we will provide it.’ The Republican Party’s philosophy, on the other hand, can be summed up as: ‘If I made it on my own, you will have to do the same.’ Nevertheless, I intend to vote in 2004 to re-elect President Bush. I will do so despite the fact that I do not agree with him on any major domestic issue, from tax policy to the recently enacted prescription-drug law. These issues, however, pale in importance beside the menace of international terrorism, which threatens our very survival as a nation. President Bush has earned my vote because he has shown the resolve and courage necessary to wage the war against terrorism.”
The proud warriors of Baker Company wanted to do something to pay tribute To our fallen comrades. So since we are part of the only Marine Infantry Battalion left in Iraq the one way that we could think of doing that is By taking a picture of Baker Company saying the way we feel. It would be awesome if you could find a way to share this with our fellow countrymen. I was wondering if there was any way to get this into your papers to let the world know that “WE HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN” and are proud to serve our country.”
Semper Fi,
1st Sgt Dave Jobe
Nothing I can add to that.
Over on his own site, Bogey has a bit of a rant on Bush’s proposal to revive the manned space program. I agree with his conclusion, which may shock him, although the “pollution” line goes a bit far!
Kennedy proposed the mission to the moon as a goal to bring the country together in a time of internal conflict. Perhaps Bush wants to try and do the same.
The arguments against the proposal will encompass many of Bogey’s thoughts. One that always makes me roll my eyes is “This money could be spent on education.” For those of you who feel this way, check statistics on increases in spending versus graduation rates, standardized test scores, or any other metric you want.
The Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs provided impetus for research that brought us many benefits. Two of the more mundane were Velcro and freeze-dried food. The flights themselves gave us little. Unless there are some classified reports with magic information we haven’t yet seen, all the moon rocks were sex stones. (Okay, maybe I need to explain that to some of you–just a bunch of f****** rocks.) The achievement was in the doing, and the byproducts from making it all happen.
Someone made the comment that this will encourage young people to become interested in science and engineering. Right. Let’s first try to get them interested in reading, writing, and math. And perhaps limiting the number of law degrees passed out each year.
Face it, there is little we can gain from this except wonder. If wonder is once again in fashion, then do it. I’m not interested in paying for it, but what does my opinion matter? I’m not interested in paying for a lot of things the government does.
It’s cool. Men walking on Mars. Families living on the moon. Personally, I think the first step should be a simulated moon base where people can actually spend six months or a year in a hostile environment living “the good life.” Then we might see what benefits there are before spending a lot of money on the project.
My son says that Afghanistan fits the bill.
“I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
Today is Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday. I grew up in his world. I was in total agreement with his philosophy and goals. I remember coming out of a movie theater where my dad picked me up to go home. “Martin Luther King was killed,” he told me. It shocked me more than Kennedy’s death.
I was a true believer. Now I feel both King and I have been betrayed. The bigotry of whites he fought against has been replaced with bigotry by blacks.
My experience is that whites do not automatically judge blacks because of their color. I see that the reverse is not true. So, blacks assume whites do the same. Forty years ago they would have been right. And our problems are based in that assumption.
The issue of race relations in this country has merged with the group-think culture so popular with “liberals.” I put quotes there because “liberal” has come to mean something far different in context than it does standing alone. The implication is “anything goes, do your own thing.” In cultural context it means “you can only do things which meet with the approval of your group, and doesn’t offend another group.” Whites, the great assimilators of culture from other groups, are viewed as oppressors. In King’s day, we were. But now, we are judged by the color of our skin.
People like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton love it. It gives them power. It gives them money. It validates their existence. Without bigotry, they have nothing. It makes me sad, and a bit angry, that today, these men will pontificate, and preach their form of hatred to adoring crowds. I think King, man of peace that he was, would slap the shit out of them if he were here.
* Is it because we don’t help build roads and day-care centers?
No, they hate us because they want to; No other reason necessary.
No matter what the US does to help other people around the world, there are some who are absolutely convinced we mean them harm. We have no record of directly causing harm, although we have done so indirectly through enabling. They don’t see any direct action on our part.
What they see daily is a miserable life. And the people who keep them in that state constantly tell them that we are to blame. And they believe it because nobody feels that their own people, who could help them, wouldn’t. They may realize their own leadership is corrupt, but that only intensifies their suspicion.
We have to remember this every time we hear a report from Iraq, Gaza, or even France.
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